


Changing shape

by Dissenter



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Angst, Daemon Prejudice, Daemon Separation, Daemon symbolism, Identity Issues, Introspection, Kaito is not ok, Mental Instability, Neither is Shinichi, Non Consensual Daemon Touching, Obliviousness, Ran is a mother bear, Secrets, or anyone really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2018-12-04 11:00:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11553804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dissenter/pseuds/Dissenter
Summary: If you lie enough, it starts to warp the shape of the truth itself. Daemon AU.





	1. Never get out

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes Shinichi is more than just a little afraid of losing himself.

Some days, Shinichi was more than just afraid he was losing himself. Some days he looked over at Makoto, (Makoto not Verity, Verity was _Conan’s_ daemon, not Shinichi’s, and Conan wasn’t real, he wasn’t), he looked at Makoto and wasn’t sure he even recognised her.

He should have been grateful. Relieved the poison had affected her just as surely as it had him. After all, it was suspicious enough that a six year old had a daemon already settled, if Edogawa Conan had shown up with a daemon that was a carbon copy of Kudo Shinichi’s, well, _someone_ would have put two and two together. He should have been glad that she shrunk with him, a leopard suddenly small enough to pass for a jungle cat of some kind, he knew that.

But he missed her as she used to be, as she _should_ be, as he was increasingly afraid she never would be again even if he did manage to regain his own form. He missed the rock solid comfort of her size and power by his side, the reassurance of knowing she was most likely the most dangerous daemon in the room. He missed feeling invincible.

The black organisation had shattered that illusion into more shards than he could ever glue back together.

_He still remembered the sickening feeling of their hands pinning her down while they forced the poison down his throat_.

…

She was still settled at least, that was a bitter kind of comfort. Even the black organisation hadn’t found a way to undo a settling once it was done. An adult’s daemon couldn’t return to being a child’s even if an adult could be returned to childhood.

It was worse though, than a simple reduction in both of their sizes. That was the work of chemicals, and human viciousness, and complex scientific processes. That was fixable, Shinichi refused to believe it wasn’t fixable. It was more than that, it was what happened after. It was the way the whole situation had changed him, left him trapped, and lying, and desperate to escape the cage of his own six year old body and everything that went with it. It was the way the illusion of his own invincibity had been broken by the knowledge that he should have _died._ It changed him, and so it changed her, and he didn’t think those changes could be undone.

It wasn’t unheard of, was the thing. It wasn’t unheard of for an already settled daemon to shift forms in response to a dramatic shift in their human’s personality or way of seeing the world. It was never a quick or dramatic shift, not like the way a child’s daemon flickered freely from form to form in the blink of an eye. It was small, quiet. From a dog to a wolf, from a butterfly to a moth, _from a miniaturised leopard to a serval cat_ , over the course of weeks or months, so slow people sometimes didn’t even notice at first. And it was as irreversible as settling itself.

Shinichi was a detective. He noticed _everything._ He noticed the slow change of her pattern of spots, the changes in limb proportions, in face shape, in the way she moved. She was his own soul, and she was changing before his eyes. He thought Mouri had noticed too, he was smarter than he first appeared, and a detective in his own right. He also thought that Mouri was unlikely to question it. He’d seen the way the man looked at “Verity”, he knew what he was thinking, a six year old with a settled daemon was never a good sign, and the fact that she was shifting a little probably looked like an _improvement_ from where he was standing.

The interpretation of daemon forms was a complex and somewhat esoteric art, tied as much to cultural assumptions, and personal understandings, as it was to actual animal behaviour. He knew what people thought about Verity’s changing. From some kind of spotted jungle cat, small and good at hiding, to a serval, still small, but known for punching above its weight. They looked and saw a child who’d spent his life hiding, finally have the confidence to speak up, to show his intelligence, and he knew they were drawing conclusions about what his home life had been like before he started living with the Mouri’s. They thought the change was positive. Shinichi knew better. “ _Never get out”_ Makoto’s new form was a constant reminder of the cage that was Edogawa Conan, of the skin that was too small and the enemies that were circling, and the fact that he wasn’t invincible. She was a serval because of a poem he once read, about a wild animal in a cage, because now he was that animal, was trapped behind those bars, and it was _changing_ him. He wasn’t sure how to be ok with that.

…

She had settled when he was fifteen, in the middle of solving a case. She had stood beside him in leopard form, watching on with feline satisfaction, and the confidence of a top predator, and something had just slid into place as neat as the final clue in a chain of deduction. Something clicked and they had _known,_ this was them, this was who they would always be.

He would admit to maybe being a little smug over her shape for a while. He was a teenager, he was allowed to be full of himself sometimes, and she truly was an impressive sight. Ran had been very irritated. Especially as time went by and Takeo _still_ didn’t settle. He still hadn’t settled that day at tropical land, when everything fell apart. Flitting reflexively from shape to shape as they rode the mystery coaster.

And it wasn’t just him that the Conan situation had changed, it was more than just his own soul affected. Takeo had settled the day of that very first case he’d worked as Conan. When she’d known he was in danger, and all her fierceness, all her will to protect had expressed themselves in the form of the massive bear standing at her side. Bigger even than Makoto had been, and it was nothing like he’d expected but it fit her _perfectly,_ strong, and fierce, and gentle unless provoked. She had settled because of _him,_ because of Conan, and he honestly didn’t know how to feel about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daemons settle when people settle into their adult personalities, this can vary widely from situation to situation, and from culture to culture. In a modern society where people are treated as children for longer, the average age is between about fourteen and seventeen. Some people do settle younger but for someone as young as Conan looks to already have a settled daemon is a massive red flag for an abusive or neglectful home situation, forcing him to grow up too soon.  
> To clarify the apotoxin shrank Makoto but didn't change her shape, there are a lot of small jungle cats that look a lot like miniature leopards and people assumed. But over time as he spent more and more time as Conan, she started to change in response to his changed mental and emotional state. Settled daemons never change very far, but under sufficient strain, small shifts can occur, e.g. dog to wolf.  
> Conan named Verity after Sherlock Holmes' daemon, because he's not terribly imaginative when it comes to aliases.


	2. Smoke and mirrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are some things Kaito has to lie about. His daemon is one of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kagami will never settle. Kaito knows this. For the sake of keeping their secrets, no-one else can.

It was harder than he’d expected, not that he’d expected it to be easy. Faking being settled, there was a reason most people couldn’t manage it, didn’t have the will or determination, or motivation to hold one shape for so long.

It started with an itch, a shadow of an impulse that he fought down, and fought down for hours until it escalated into a craving that he couldn’t ignore. It burned, it ached, it felt like his body was three sizes too small for his heart, it felt like he couldn’t _breathe,_ and he knew it was just an echo of what Kagami was feeling. But still Kagami held the shape they’d decided on, she knew as well as he did that it was necessary. By the end of the day he felt about ready to crawl out of his own skin.

Hakuba could tell something was wrong, he could see it in the slightly concerned looks he and Chieko kept giving them when they thought they weren’t looking. He would admit, his poker face was wearing thin. He and Kagami were visibly restless, and aggravated, the pain, discomfort, and _wrongness,_ leaving him irritable and touchy in a way that a detective as skilled as Hakuba couldn’t help but notice. They would have to get better at hiding it. The truth was evidence that he couldn’t afford to let people have, about what he did at night, who Kid really was.

When they got home they cycled through a dozen forms in half a minute just because they could, fox, and butterfly, and miniature dragon, and more, and they could finally _breathe,_ breathe and steel themselves to the knowledge  that they’d have to do it all again the next day.

…

They were technically still young enough that being unsettled wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. Especially with how immature they could act sometimes. Most people would just assume they had yet to settle, it would be an easy assumption to make. He might have even thought that himself, but… there was no lying to themselves on this. They’d known. As soon as they’d separated, they knew. Kagami couldn’t say _how_ she knew, but she knew, just the same way newly settled daemons knew they wouldn’t change anymore, she had known they would change forever, and Kaito had felt the truth in that knowing. And knowing they wouldn’t settle, meant that sooner or later they’d have to fake it, because Kuroba Kaito with an unsettled daemon, and Kaitou Kid with the same rare condition, was too obvious a connection for any detective to miss. And it would have to be sooner rather than later, because while some people did settle later than seventeen it was unsual enough to draw attention, and that, they couldn’t afford. So they chose a form that seemed appropriate, declared themselves settled, and stopped changing in front of anyone that might recognise them.

They’d chosen a magpie in the end, because it wouldn’t be unexpected, would fit well enough with the flighty trickster persona he showed his class. The less unexpected her form was, the less people would question it, and the heart of all deception was keeping people from asking the wrong questions. Besides, being in bird form, being able to fly and move around helped ease some of the restlessness that came from forcing themselves to stick to one form, and every little helped.

It wasn’t like the Magpie was a bad shape. Maybe it really would have been how they settled, if it weren’t for everything that happened. Still there was no use wondering. They’d done this to themselves, they knew the risks, and now they’d have to live with the consequences.

He thought back to his decision to become Kid, his realisation of what he’d have to do in order to pull it off. His father and Tsukime had been separated, as most adult magicians were, it was vital to any number of tricks, and he’d made full use of that fact as the Kaitou Kid. The Kid was known to be separated, and so if he wanted to do the Kid’s work he would have to be too.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t been planning on doing it eventually. He was a magician too after all, he and Kagami had always planned on separating after she settled. But then that was the problem, _after_ she settled. There was a reason separation was done _after_ a daemon settled. There were risks associated with separating an unsettled daemon, no-one knew why, but if a person separated from their daemon before they settled there was a one in a hundred chance that they would _never_ settle.

But Kagami wasn’t settled, and wasn’t even close to settling, and there was no time to wait and do things the proper way. So they’d done it anyway and hang the risks. They knew how, all magicians did, knowledge stolen generations ago from true witches and guarded as fiercely as a magician’s secrets always were. They knew how, and they’d put that knowledge into use, and that one in a hundred chance had come up positive.

It was useful really. He would never be able to so convincingly disguise himself as so many people if Kagami weren’t able to mimic their daemons. His father had been limited to imitating people with daemons small enough to hide, or similar enough to Tsukime to pass casual inspection. Kaito could be _anyone,_ Kagami could be anyone, could take any shape needed, could go small to slip under doorways, could aquire night vision, or enhanced hearing or increase in size to become a physical force to be reckoned with. It was useful, he told himself, he didn’t regret it, he didn’t. If he were given the choice over again he wouldn’t change it. It was useful, he told himself and it wasn’t a lie.

But still, it wasn’t _right_ and he wasn’t ok. He was all masks, all smoke and mirrors, and he couldn’t look to Kagami to remind himself who he was underneath, would never be able to. That stability, that adult identity was something he’d sacrificed to his mission, and he wouldn’t change it but that that didn’t mean it was fine, that he didn’t wish sometimes, didn’t wonder, some things mattered more than usefulness.

Because he did wonder, what she might have been, what form his personality might have settled into if he hadn’t unanchored it the way he had. She’d have been a trickster of course, that much had been obvious since he was a small child, he was a _Kuroba_ after all. He didn’t think she’d have been the same as Tsukime though, he wasn’t his father. He was hardened in ways his father hadn’t been, even before he became the Kid. Early tragedy would do that to a child.

Tsukime had been a white rabbit, perfect on so many levels for his father. A trickster yes, all rabbits were tricksters although sometimes people forgot that, but not a predator, and most tricksters _were_ predators. No his father had never had that vicious edge. He gloried in daring escapes, and teasing his pursuers, and knowing they might chase him but they’d _never_ catch him.

Kaito remembered a story his father used to read to him, he remembered a line, “and all the world shall be your enemy, prince with a thousand enemies, and if they catch you they will kill you. But first they must catch you.” That had been his father right down to the core that had been at the heart of the games he played. But they had caught him in the end, the Syndicate, the men in black with the blank eyed daemons. They had caught him, and they had killed him, and now Kaito hunted them in their turn, he was running, but he was also chasing, in a way that Touichi never had. There was too much predator in him for Kagami to ever have settled as prey, a fox maybe, or a raven, or even the magpie they’d been faking as, but not a rabbit, not for them. Not that it really mattered now. They wouldn’t settle as anything now. They’d followed his father down that rabbit hole and now the world was thrown into a beautiful terrible chaos, and the two of them with it, there was nothing about them steady enough to tie to one form.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In separating from Kagami before she was settled Kaito has made it so that she will never settle. It's not a common side effect but it's known to happen, and that's part of why children separating from their daemons is not done.   
> It's not a particularly good sign for Kaito's mental state. Adults having unsettled daemons is a bad sign, and in this case it feeds into Kaito's identity issues and general instability in a bad way.  
> Hakuba is about 75% sure they're faking being settled, but he's not sure why. He will confront them about it.  
> The knowledge on how to separate from your daemon is not actually common knowledge. Witches know how because they invented the technique. Magicians know because several generations ago a very reckless magician stole the technique from a witch, and it's been shared around magicians circles ever since. Various government agencies know how it's done, but the knowledge is usually restricted/classified. Various organised crime groups know how from stealing the info from govts, and some scientists know, from advanced research access. But your everyday person in the street doesn't know how to do it.


	3. All medicines are poisons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ai finds the shape of her soul is more constant than she had thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes Ai wishes she could lose herself the way Conan fears he is losing himself. But while Hiroto might have become Himitsu, his shape is still the same. And in a way, that is only right.

Ai was never quite sure if she was glad that Hiroto hadn’t shifted the way Makoto did when the reality of their situation sunk in.

He’d shrunk with her of course, that was a side effect of the apotoxin, but his shape had held steady through everything, and she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel about that. Couldn’t quite deny a part of her had _wanted_ him to change, to prove she was no longer the same person as the woman that created that poison, and yet another equally strong part of her was ashamed of even thinking such a thing, of trying to run away from that responsibility, ashamed of even wishing she could hide from the truth of what she was.

She wasn’t ashamed of Hiroto, certainly she couldn’t think of a form that would fit him better, but still she wasn’t sure how she felt about the fact that for everything that had happened, everything she’d done, losing her sister, and trying to kill herself, and reverting to childhood, and betraying the organisation that had owned her since before she was old enough to understand what that meant, that all those things had happened and yet none of it had changed her deep down. That both the person that served the organisation loyally and put death into the shape of little white pills for them, and the person that betrayed it utterly and ranranran from everything she knew, could be the same person deep down, heart deep, soul deep.

But then maybe it made an odd kind of sense, as much sense as daemonlore ever did. All medicines are poisons, she knew that better than anyone, she had always had the potential to hurt or to heal with her creations. There was an ambiguity to snake daemons, a duality, they symbolised so many things, wisdom and deception, enlightenment and betrayal, healing and poison. She was in the end, just tapping into another aspect of the person she’d always been. She’d always had the power, the potential to help, or to harm, the possibility of both right and wrong. Nothing was different about her except her choices, and so of course Himitsu remained stubbornly steady in the shape he had chosen when they were twelve.

She knew Conan was afraid he was losing himself, losing _Shinichi,_ to the subtle but undeniable changes that were happening to Makoto. She wasn’t afraid of losing herself, if anything part of her _wished_ she could lose herself, become Haibara Ai in truth, and leave behind even the memory of Miyano Shiho, and everything she’d been, and done, and lost. But that would be cowardice of the worst sort. Those things happened, she did those things, and she could not absolve herself, not of those that had died from her creations, not of her sister’s sacrifice. In the end she was not truly sorry Himitsu had held firm, even as everything had changed around her. She owed too much to lose herself now.

It made them stand out of course, all of them, her and Himitsu, Conan and Verity. They really were too young to be settled, at least in a modern, developed country like Japan. There were still places in the world where children had to grow up that fast, but this was not one of them. It stood out, and not in a good way. There weren’t many things that could make a child settle so young, and none of them were good. She worried sometimes about that, that it might be yet another thing to draw _their_ attention, that people might put it together with their too mature attitudes and too sharp intellects, and realise who and what they were. But in the end it proved to be another layer of disguise. People saw a child with a settled daemon, and they made assumptions, the kind of assumptions that made people not _want_ to look closer, the kind of assumptions that made people indulgent of strangeness. People in the end saw what they expected to see.

That was what made Kudo so terrifying really, the thing that made him enough of a threat to _them_ that Ai chose to pin all her hopes on him. He saw what was there, not what he expected to see, not what he wanted to see, but the truth. A cat of any kind really did suit him, with his gift for seeing through shadows. He might have changed, and Makoto with him, but that much of themselves had remained constant. She wondered if it would be a comfort if she told him that. Hattori san was the same, maybe it was a detective thing, eyes that saw too clearly, the lot of them and she still couldn’t believe he’d guessed the truth after only two encounters with Conan. Truth be told though, sparrowhawks saw even clearer than cats, at least by daylight so she supposed it made its own kind of sense.

But most people, even _them,_ cunning and ruthless as they were, didn’t see a child with a settled daemon and immediately draw a connection with a missing teenager. It was just too absurd, too much of a leap to make when every instinct was busy screaming that there was a damaged child in front of them. It spoke to something instinctive in most people, replaced suspicion with concern on a level they weren’t conscious of. And it made them uncomfortable, uncomfortable enough that they didn’t look as close as they might have done. There were in the end some questions people just didn’t want the answers to.

All practicalities, and guilt, and grief aside, on more fundamental level it was just comforting to have him stay constant. Shiho was now Ai, and Hiroto was now Himitsu, and both of them were considerably smaller, but his sleek mottled python form still fit perfectly around her neck and shoulders, was still right, and true, and steadying in ways she couldn’t really describe to the kids with their still unsettled daemons, still caught up in the sheer joy of shifting from thought to thought, impulse to impulse. They didn’t know how much of an anchor against the world a settled daemon could be. Not that there was anything wrong with that, kids should have a chance to be kids, to enjoy the sheer possibility that came with being unsettled. She had settled too young, not as young as six, but younger than she should have had to, and while she didn’t regret Hiroto, (no he was Himitsu now she had to remember), she didn’t regret how he settled, but it would have been nice, to have a little longer to be a child.

She supposed she got her wish in a way. Himitsu was settled still, but she was a child again in everything except soul, and that, that was a second chance unlooked for. She wasn’t quite a child of course, and it showed, she’d seen how adults looked at Himitsu, settled so shockingly young, and at her, too serious and mature for a six year old, and saw how they drew their own conclusions. But it was close enough, and she found it made her _happy,_ spending time with Ayumi and Mitsuhiko and Genta, playing silly childish games, knowing that they called her _friend_ , living with Agasa, letting Kaori run clever primate fingers over Himitsu’s scales wishing she dared call him grandfather, teasing Conan, who was the kind of brave, and loyal ally she’d thought didn’t exist in the real world. She was learning to live as a person, and it eased something in her heart that had been coiled so tightly she didn’t know it hurt. And maybe Himitsu had shifted a little because his scales were brighter and clearer than she ever remembered them being.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiroto/Himitsu is a burmese python, before he shrank he was a really big snake. Now he's a lot smaller, and unless you're actually looking hard, a lot of constrictor snakes look pretty similar, so the black org doesn't immediately look at him and make the connection.   
> Conan and Ai are actually very lucky that both their daemons, when shrunk, can pass for entirely different species to the untrained eye.   
> In case you were wondering Agasa's Kaori is an orangutan, and Heiji's daemon is a sparrowhawk called Sadako. Ran has a brown bear called Takeo. More on them later.


	4. White knight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saguru doesn't resent his daemon, he doesn't. He knows he is lying to himself a little, but that's nothing compared to the lies Kuroba is telling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Saguru loves Chieko, he just wishes her shape didn't make everything so much harder. Meanwhile, Kuroba is hiding something. Saguru will figure out what it is.

Sometimes, Saguru felt, Chieko was a lot to live up to. She certainly wasn’t unobtrusive, and, people looked at her and made assumptions that he didn’t know how to deal with. Oh that was true of all daemons to an extent, but walking around with a white horse at his side made him look like a hero, like a knight out of a fairytale, and some days Saguru couldn’t feel less like a hero.

It was awkward too, in crowds, in tight spaces. Especially when chasing the Kid, who loved high places, and awkward obstacles. She slowed him down, and he didn’t resent her for it, but it _was_ inconvenient, and they both knew it. Still, it was what it was, and they would just have to live with it. And in any case it wasn’t like there were no positives, she was big, and horses were dangerous animals, when it came down to a straight up physical confrontation she had a better than average chance of coming out on top, and he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t useful sometimes to have a daemon who could double as a mode of transport.

But she was a lot to live up to, a white horse, a saviour, a symbol of justice, and honour, and purity, and sometimes he could barely breathe for the weight of expectation that people put on him when they first saw her.

In that, as in so many other things Kuroba was different.

The first thing _Kuroba_ had said about her was. “Doesn’t death ride a white horse? Seems fitting for a detective doesn’t it?” And it had been rude, and mildly offensive, and a part of Saguru had been grateful, because _finally_ there was someone who looked at his daemon and saw a danger, not a hero. (and if that was because Kuroba saw himself as the villain of the piece, well, Saguru wasn’t sure it even mattered.)

…

Something was up with Kuroba, though. With both him and Kagami, and part of Saguru felt like he should know what the problem was, but he couldn’t, quite manage to pin it down, and Kuroba was avoiding him even more carefully than usual, so he must _know_ that Saguru had noticed something was wrong.

It took a week before he managed to corner Kuroba, and if he hadn’t been borderline obsessive in his study of Kuroba’s behaviour he might have thought the problem was gone by that point. It wasn’t, Kuroba had just got more practiced at hiding it, whatever it was. Saguru knew when Kuroba was acting.

It was odd because whatever the problem was, it didn’t seem to be affecting Kid, at all. It was purely Kuroba’s civilian identity that spent the days looking like he wanted to crawl out of his skin, and something was nagging at the back of his mind about that.

He’d finally managed to corner Kuroba by chasing him out of a window. He’d managed to grab Kuroba’s wrist before being pulled up short by his range. Chieko couldn’t follow him out of the window. Kuroba could have escaped, he had no doubt, but instead he looked at Chieko, standing just inside, and at Saguru, wincing at the pain of unaccustomed distance and he stopped. If asked, Saguru would not have been able to say why, but Kuroba stopped, stepped back towards the window and then sat down.

“It makes it harder for you doesn’t it?” He said, nodding at Chieko, “Her shape. It makes it harder for you to chase Kid sama.” Saguru bristled at the implied insult.

“There’s nothing wrong with Chieko’s form.” He snapped, Kuroba just waved his hand in dismissal.

“Of course there’s nothing _wrong_ with her. She’s the shape of your soul, there’s nothing wrong with that. But it does cause you an unfair disadvantage on heists.” Kuroba seemed to be thinking, and for the life of him Saguru couldn’t figure out what was going through his head. The worst thing was Kuroba was _right,_ and he hated thinking of his own daemon as an inconvenience but the truth was, she was. Kuroba seemed to come to a decision.

“You could separate.” He said, and Saguru froze in shock. He’d known, intellectually, that Kuroba must know how it was done. Kid was separated, and he _knew_ Kuroba was Kid. But he’d never expected Kuroba to actually admit to it, let alone tell him the method. It wasn’t exactly common knowledge, and it _certainly_ wasn’t the kind of thing easily shared.

“What?” He replied, unable to construct a more complex response. Why was Kid offering him an advantage in chasing him?

“It’s not really fair, to have you handicapped that way on heists. I’m sure Kid sama would prefer a fairer challenge.” Ah that was it, not giving him an advantage, just neutralising a disadvantage that was undermining Kid’s fun. That made as much sense as the phantom thief ever did.

“I can’t just _separate._ I don’t even know how I’d go about doing that.” Kuroba’s expression didn’t waver.

“It’s simpler than you might think.” He said softly. “Simpler than you think, and harder than you can imagine.” Saguru wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer when he asked.

“How do you know that?” Kuroba responded with a smile that was more Kid than Kaito, and an easy tone as false as a forged gemstone.

“Oh all magicians know how to separate. It’s said that a brave, reckless, possibly stupid, magician stole the knowledge from a true witch, and that is the true reason why witches hate magicians.” Kaito said it as if it were common knowledge, but Saguru hadn’t known that witches hated magicians, and didn’t that say interesting things about the relationship between Kuroba and Koizumi san. “To separate, all you have to do really, is go where your daemon cannot follow, and don’t look back. I can give you a list of places, if it’s something you’d want.” And for the first time in the conversation Kuroba showed uncertainty.

“Isn’t it… dangerous?” Saguru wasn’t sure whether to hate himself for actually considering the option. It could be very useful. A shadow passed over Kuroba’s eyes at the question, gone almost too quickly to see, but definitely there.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. You’re already settled. It’ll hurt like hell, and Chieko probably won’t talk to you for a few weeks, but there won’t be any permanent side effects.”

“Does that mean there are permanent side effects if you aren’t settled?” There was something there, that Kuroba didn’t want him to chase, but he wasn’t a detective because he gave up on lines of questioning easily, and he stared Kuroba down, silently demanding answers.

“If you separate before settling there’s a one percent chance that you might never settle at all.” Kuroba finally admitted, visibly reluctant, and the final clue in the deduction chain finally slid into place. He looked at Kagami restless, and uncomfortable, and clearly desperate to change and he wondered how he could have missed it. Kuroba was _faking_ being settled.

That day last week when he’d come in and announced to everyone that Kagami had settled, in a magpie form that surprised absolutely nobody, that had been when Saguru had first noticed something _off_ about him. He wanted to kick himself for missing it. And he called himself a detective. In his defence, it really hadn’t occurred to him that anyone could _want_ to fake being settled, especially since, sooner or later their daemon would _actually_ settle and give the game away. But if Kuroba’s daemon wasn’t going to settle, if he _knew_ she wasn’t going to settle, then of course he’d have to fake it sooner or later. Permanently unsettled daemons weren’t so common that the taskforce wouldn’t have picked up on the connection.

Kuroba’s willpower was truly impressive. To force his unsettled daemon to hold her form for so long. He must be in an astonishing amount of pain, and yet barely a trace of it showed on his face. If Saguru hadn’t been looking for it he never would have known it was there.

Part of Saguru recognised it as a sign, a warning, of just how unstable Kuroba really was, how unstable the Kid was. Sane and stable adults didn’t have unsettled daemons, and everyone knew the Kid was insane, but this, this was something else. It went beyond eccentricity, showed a fundamental uncertainty about his own identity about _who_ he was, that said nothing good about his mental health. And the sheer self-destructive stubbornness required to _hide_ it, well, Saguru shouldn’t have been so surprised to find himself worried about his rival. Kuroba was _not_ ok, and Saguru wished he weren’t such a damnably good actor. If he weren’t then maybe someone would have noticed, could have helped him, before it got to this point.

Point of no return. Saguru wondered idly how Kagami could _know_ she would never settle but he didn’t doubt it was the truth. Kuroba wouldn’t have tried to hide it if it wasn’t. In the end of course Kuroba admitted nothing, not even whether he and Kagami were actually separated. But Saguru knew, and Kuroba knew that he knew, and it was not a light piece of knowledge to bear.

He left school that day with a list of places where he and Chieko could separate. Maybe it was stupid, but he had to understand. If he was going to keep chasing the Kid, he _needed_ to understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chieko is a white horse. This is somewhat inconvenient. Especially when chasing the Kid. Saguru tries not to think of her as inconvenient, but it's hard. Kaito is actually quite sympathetic, that's why he offers Saguru the chance to separate.  
> Saguru feels conflicted about this because it would be a final admission that Chieko is inconvenient, and you aren't supposed to think things like that about your daemon. Even if they're true. He does go for it in the end though.  
> Note that separating is a separate issue from severing which turns people into zombies without free will.


	5. Ursa major

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinichi wasn't there when Ran's Takeo settled. He should have been, maybe then he'd understand, she was a protector, he should let her help him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ran want's more than anything to protect the people she loves. But she can't protect them from themselves.

Shinichi hadn’t seen Takeo settle. It was such a small thing, a petty thing, but she’d seen Makoto settle, and she’d always thought, that when Takeo finally decided who he was, Shinichi and Makoto would be there. That they would see what she became.

But in the end, it was just her, and Takeo and a small child that looked far too much like Shinichi, with a daemon settled far too young. It had been her, and Conan, and the knowledge that she had to protect him, because no-one else had. And it was unfair, that it wasn’t until Shinichi was gone that she managed to find herself. But Conan had been in danger and he needed her, and in that moment she’d _known_ , they both had. She was fierceness, and protectiveness, a kind of power that was gentle until it wasn’t, until it _needed_ to be dangerous. She was the mother bear, strong, and devoted, and she wouldn’t change that for the world.

Conan really did look too much like Shinichi, he looked like him, and he sounded like him, and he acted like him, but Verity at his side showed all too clearly the difference between them. A small shy jungle cat where Makoto had been a proud leopardess, she was too good at hiding, and that said nothing good about his life up to now. He was too young, far too young to have a settled daemon, and Ran wasn’t stupid, her father was a detective, and he used to be a policeman and she _knew_ what kind of things drove children to grow up so fast. Wherever his parent’s were, they had a lot to answer for.

But Ran was a protector. Maybe she couldn’t undo the past, but she could try and protect him now, give him a chance to feel safe, even if innocence was beyond his reach. And it was working she knew, at least a little, even if they stumbled into a murder scene every other day, and his eyes were still too old for his face, and sometimes she thought he was terribly afraid of something he wouldn’t tell her about. She saw him playing with the other children, Ayumi, and Genta, and Mitsuhiko, heard him sound just a little less like his whole world had fallen apart, she noticed the way Verity was changing, slowly subtly, into something that was still a small spotted cat, but one more suited to chasing, to pouncing than it was to hiding. He wasn’t ok, but he was doing better. Sometimes it was frustrating, having to drag Conan away from crime scenes while Takeo grabbed Verity by the scruff of the neck and followed. But then she remembered how she met Conan, hiding behind Agasa’s desk, with Verity half invisible in the shadows, and she regretted nothing. It was after all, normal for kids to cause trouble.

She didn’t regret settling, but still Shinichi should have been there. And as days, weeks, months, passed and he still wasn’t there, she _knew_ something was wrong. It wasn’t just Takeo’s settling he missed, he was missing school, tests, holidays, _birthdays,_ life was passing by and Shinichi was missing it all, and Ran worried. She couldn’t protect him, even the reassuring wall of brown furred muscle that was Takeo couldn’t help him, if she didn’t know where he was, or what he was doing. And it made her want to punch Shinichi in the _nose._ Makoto might be strong but there were things even she couldn’t fight, and surely, surely, Takeo at her side might be able to help.

Sonoko told her not to worry about that detective idiot, that he was fine, he probably just got distracted. She said all those things but Ran could see how Akihiko fluttered around her head, all the worry she wouldn’t say out loud showing in the frantic fluttering movements of his jewel bright wings. She appreciated the thought, but Ran knew Sonoko too well to believe that she wasn’t worried too. All the same Ran found herself leaning more and more on Sonoko’s deceptive strength, as Shinichi faded ever further into the shadows. People might think of butterflies as silly or frivolous, but they make journeys of thousands of miles on wings thinner than paper, and that is a strength Ran can respect. Size isn’t everything after all.

Size isn’t everything Ran knows that well enough, but there was a part of her that was maybe a little pleased that Takeo now outweighed Makoto. Shinichi always had been just a little bit too smug about the fact that Makoto could physically overpower most daemons she came across. It would do him good to be taken down a peg or two when he finally did come home. She would punch Shinichi in the nose, and Takeo could _sit_ on Makoto and it would be very, very satisfying. Ran always had been the one to put Shinichi in his place so it was only right that Takeo could do the same for Makoto. It would happen, Shinichi would come home, and she’d make him suffer for making her worry, and everything would be fine. It would.

…

Takeo was bigger than Maki now as well, and wasn’t that a strange thought. Not exactly that he was bigger, it wasn’t like he’d never taken larger forms than her before, but this was different. A part of growing up she supposed, the fact that her parents were no longer larger than life.

Her father and Maki had been proud though, and in this at least they had always been faultless. For all of her father’s weaknesses, and flaws they had _always_ been proud of her and whatever she chose to be. Scruffy, and embarrassing, and often not fit for polite company, but they believed in her, trusted her. Sometimes more than they trusted themselves.

They might grumble about Conan and Verity, but they’d never made any concerted effort to discourage her when she’d taken him in. After all they trusted her judgement. He grumbled, but in the end she’d seen the way he looked at Verity, settled too young, and Conan with eyes too old for his face, and she knew that he saw what she did, that he was letting himself get invested despite himself. She’d seen how he tried to look out for Conan when she wasn’t watching, in the rough and casual way that she knew meant he was pretending not to care. The picture she’d taken of a nanny goat picking a spotted cat up by the scruff of the neck at the exact same moment her father picked Conan up by the collar of his jacket and physically lifted him away from a crime scene, was one she’d treasure for a long time.

She didn’t know what it was, Conan’s arrival, or her own settling, or something else entirely, but something had changed. Something had made her father stop sabotaging himself, at least partially, had created the Sleeping Kogoro. It was an odd development, but he’d always been smarter than he looked, smarter than he liked to pretend, and maybe there was only so long you could ignore your own instincts before they found some way to force themselves out. He wasn’t really a fool, she knew it, her mother knew it, his friends in the police force had known it, in a way that made it worse, watching him bury his skills, his ability under layers of carelessness, and bad habits. It was at least half of why her mother had left, tired of watching him undermine himself. Maybe now that he was at least subconsciously letting his ability show, they might get back together.

Of course the other half of the equation was her mother’s own eagle’s pride, her inability to let disappointment slide, it might take a while for her to let go of her anger and hurt. But that was ok, Ran was willing to brave a challenge for this, for her family back in one piece. It was a dream, her mother, and her father, and her unexpected little brother Conan, and her best friend Sonoko, and _Shinichi_. Shinichi who she loved and hadn’t told, and maybe it was petty superstition to believe that if she could fix her parent’s relationship, fix just this one thing, it might somehow bring the world back into order, might make everything ok. That everything else would just fall into place, Shinichi would come home, and Conan would be theirs forever with no fear of his parents coming back for him. It was a silly dream but she couldn’t shake it, didn’t really want to. Because she wanted to protect them all, more than anything, but she couldn’t protect them from themselves, from her father’s self-destructiveness, and her mother’s refusal to admit weakness, and Shinichi’s refusal to _ask for help._ Maybe if they were all together safe, it might fix that.

But in the end she was a protector not a healer. She couldn’t fix what was wrong, all she could do was stand between her loved ones and the world and hope it was enough. Shinichi was still gone, still hadn’t even seen Takeo’s form, her mother and her father still loved each other, and still couldn’t help but cut each other to pieces with that love, Sonoko was still careless with her own heart, still loved too easily, Conan was still far too old for his years and frightened of something he wouldn’t tell her about. They would fight her every step of the way, but she would protect them all anyway wherever and however she could, because it was clear to her that they wouldn’t protect themselves.

She just wished they’d let her be there for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takeo is a brown bear, a very big brown bear. Probably the biggest daemon that will appear in this fic aside from Saguru's daemon, who is in a similar size range.  
> Sonoko's Akihiko is a butterfly  
> Kogoro's Maki is a goat  
> Eri's daemon is an eagle.  
> Remember that as far as Ran knows Conan and Shinichi are separate people. She's not stupid, she knows that Shinichi is in some sort of trouble, and Conan is running scared of something, but it's a bit of a jump to believe the two of them are one and the same. So her interpretation of Makoto/Verity's changing shape is that he's actually feeling safer. It's a reasonable conclusion, even if it is wrong.


	6. Beneath the surface

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aoko knows better than most how quickly people make assumptions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Aoko, settling revealed things about herself she'd much rather have kept hidden. She's suspicious of the fact that Kaito settling tells her absolutely nothing new at all.

Aoko blamed Kaito. Most things in her life could be blamed on Kaito. He was one of the defining influences on her personality, which meant that indirectly, Kohaku’s shape could be considered his fault. Or maybe it was Kid’s fault. In his own way, he’d affected her as much as Kaito had. Certainly, without the Kid she didn’t think she’d have ever learned to be so _angry._ But deep down she knew that was unfair. That this of all things couldn’t be blamed on either Kaito or the Kid. That it wasn’t fair to them, and it wasn’t fair to her. Deep down, a part of her knew that if there was one thing you could never truthfully blame on anyone else it was the shape of your daemon.

Kohaku was the way he was because of her and no-one else, because he was hers, because she was who she was. She shouldn’t be so uncomfortable with that. It was just, the way people _looked_ at her, like she was dangerous, like she was always half a step from outright violence, ready to bite their heads off if they annoyed her. People were afraid of her now, without knowing her, without even meeting her. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to be comfortable with that. She wasn’t sure how to deal with the permanent and inescapable evidence of the temper she’d never quite managed to tame.

But years of being friends with Kaito had taught her never to let the audience see her flinch, never let them know if they got to her, no matter how much it hurt. That looking confident was more than half of any trick. So she let no trace of her discomfort show on her face, or in her words, and she was pretty sure she fooled everyone except Kaito and Hakuba kun, and those two were never fooled by anyone except each other. Sometimes not even then. She was enough Kaito’s friend to cover her doubts with false pride. Maybe if she faked it long enough, she’d find a way to be ok with it.

And ok maybe it wasn’t what she’d expected, and maybe honey badgers had a certain… reputation, for viciousness, for aggression, for violence. It wasn’t what anyone had expected of friendly, cheerful Aoko. But it was an expression of who she was, and she _wasn’t_ sorry for _being_ herself, even if she hadn’t quite come to terms with all of it, even if it wasn’t what she’d expected of herself. So she walked into school with her head held high the morning after Kohaku stopped changing, with a confidence she didn’t feel, and a pride that was at least half faked, and made no apologies at all for the shape he’d chosen. Weakness was blood in the water to high school students, they’d whisper less if she didn’t look ashamed.

Anyway the people that mattered didn’t care. Keiko and her other school friends had just thought it was funny. Had agreed half jokingly that it was absolutely Kaito’s fault. That his antics were enough to drive anyone to violence, and it was no wonder that after years of putting up with him, she’d settled with a creature that could properly express her frustrations. It was more of a comfort than she could have imagined, that they had decided not to take any of it seriously. Kaito always had said that laughter helped even out the rough edges of life, helped keep everything from becoming overwhelming. It was annoying when he turned out to be right.

Her schoolfriends’ laughter and her father’s simple uncomplicated pride had been exactly the comfort she’d needed to soothe her own panic. Her father didn’t care how she settled, would have been proud of her however she’d settled, and he’d been quick to research the symbolism, to tell her it meant she was clever, and fierce, and determined, and that he loved her. She smiled at the memory of how Ayako had yipped in excitement when they found out their daemons were from the same place.

Kaito, had been a different kind of comfort. The way he couldn’t even imagine why she’d have a problem with Kohaku being a honey badger. The way he’d just taken it in his stride, as though there was nothing else she ever _could_ have been. And maybe that was true, but no-one else acted like it, and Kaito’s attitude felt just a little like justification, a little like a reassurance that Kohaku’s shape was _right._

The people that mattered didn’t care. Kaito least of all, but there was something sad behind his eyes when she told him Kohaku had settled. It wasn’t Kohaku’s shape, he hadn’t even blinked at that. It wasn’t her or Kohaku at all, it was the settling itself, and she didn’t know why the thought upset him, but she knew him better than almost anyone in the world and she could tell it did.

It was only a couple of weeks later that he declared Kagami settled, in a magpie form that was surprising mostly for how utterly unsurprising it was. She’d honestly expected him to defy expectations even in this, to have ended up with something no-one had even imagined, but that fit him like a glove. After all he never had been one to do the expected thing. The magpie did fit, more or less, even if it was a little more obvious than she would have expected. But something nagged at the back of her mind when she looked at them together, as though the shapes didn’t quite line up as they should. Maybe it was just that no single form could ever really encompass the sheer localised chaos that was Kuroba Kaito, but Kagami just didn’t look quite _right_ holding steady dressed in black and white feathers.

Honestly Kagami had been acting very oddly for a while after settling. Restless, almost uncomfortable, although maybe it just took longer to adjust to a fixed shape for a daemon that had changed as quickly and often as Kagami had. She’d fidgeted, and fluttered, and taken off to fly around the class at a good double the distance most daemons could manage from their humans. She didn’t look right in her own skin, and to be honest neither did Kaito, fidgeting nearly twice as much as usual, with a manic edge he usually only got when he was running on sugar and two nights solid of sleep deprivation.

They both calmed down after about a week. Aoko would have been happier if she had been sure they hadn’t just learned to hide their discomfort better.

Still sometimes she was almost jealous of Kaito. He hadn’t upset _anyone’s_ views of him with the way he’d settled. For once, he’d done what everyone expected, and she… hadn’t. He didn’t have to deal with the wide-eyed disbelief, the sudden nervousness from people who’d previously been friendly, the extra two feet of personal space she suddenly merited on public transport, and as much as she kept reminding herself that the people who _mattered_ didn’t care, it still hurt.

It had, in the end, been Hakuba kun who helped the most. He knew enough about the weight of expectation and baggage that a daemon’s shape could carry. The expectations people had of him were completely different to the ones they had of her, but were in their own way, just as heavy to bear. He didn’t want to be seen as a hero, any more than she wanted to be seen as a delinquent. Kaito hadn’t understood, he never understood why anyone would have a problem with their daemon’s shape beyond the purely practical. He didn’t understand self-doubt, not really, not from the inside. Hakuba did.

She said as much to Hakuba kun once. That Kaito didn’t understand why people might be uncomfortable with how they settled. Hakuba had gone very quiet then, and his eyes terribly sad. Had murmured softly that there were reasons for that and refused to continue the conversation any further.

A soft worried voice at the back of her mind couldn’t help but put that together with the way Kaito had looked when Aoko settled, the way he’d acted when he settled. And she thought about how if anyone else was going to pick up on something wrong with Kaito it _would_ be Hakuba kun, who was brilliant, and a detective, and not afraid to look beyond the surface, that most people didn’t dare to push past. Sometimes Aoko wondered if even she dared to look all the way down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aoko's daemon Kohaku is a honey badger  
> Inspector Nakamori has a painted dog called Ayako.  
> Hakuba's Chieko is as previously discussed a white horse, and Kaito is only pretending to be settled.


	7. A butterfly flaps its wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People think Sonoko is flighty. They aren't looking deep enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Butterflies are stronger than people think. Sonoko is perfectly willing to take advantage of the way people underestimate her.

Akihiko had settled early. Not worryingly early like that glasses brat or his little friend Ai chan, but at thirteen she’d been the first in their class to settle, and Sonoko had always been a little smug about it. Proof that she was just more mature than the rest of them. Not that she’d ever say that out loud, after all, Ran hadn’t settled until fairly late, and she didn’t want to hurt Ran’s feelings, not when she knew it was something Ran genuinely worried about.

It surprised people though, because they looked at Akihiko’s butterfly form and thought “flighty”, superficial, more image than substance, but then they realised that settling so young was far from a flighty thing to do, and so few of them ever managed to reconcile the dissonance. They just didn’t understand, what he really symbolised.

Ran got it though. Ran was a good friend, had taken the time to do research as soon as it became clear Akihiko had settled. She knew that butterflies could migrate thousands of miles on wings so fragile a touch could break them, that they stored poison stolen from plants to ward off predators and that once upon a time they were worshiped as the souls of dead warriors. She knew what Akihiko’s bright delicate wings meant. Strength and fragility all tangled up together, deceptive strength, unexpected strength. And of course beauty. Sonoko would freely admit to a little vanity, and it was gratifying that Akihiko was so pretty. Even if it did make it hard getting people to take her seriously.

Shinichi had got it too, mostly because he was too damn clever for his own good. He’d never looked at Akihiko as worth anything less than his full respect. Although maybe that was just because he knew her, well enough that he knew better than to provoke her.

And she’d understood Shinichi’s daemon. Better even than Ran did, she sometimes thought, because Ran always had a bit of a blind spot when it came to Shinichi. Makoto’s leopard shape showed pride of course, even arrogance, lethal strength, and the independence native to all cats both large and small. That much everyone could see, Ran included. Sonoko wasn’t sure how much Ran recognised the killer instinct, the love of the hunt, the chase, the kill, that Makoto’s shape showed, but then Takeo was a predator too, maybe she’d seen more than Sonoko gave her credit for. She didn’t think Ran saw the deceptiveness though, the inclination towards secrets that had finally expressed itself with his sudden disappearance.

People didn’t take Akihiko seriously. But sometimes it was good to be underestimated, useful. She’d learned that from Uncle Jirokichi, his pretty little hummingbird made people dismiss him as a threat entirely, up until the point where they realised just how vicious hummingbirds could be. There was a reason the Aztecs named their war God for them. Let Shinichi and Ran have their obvious strength, size and muscle, teeth and claws clear to see. There was a power to be had in subtlety, and she was more than willing to use it.

Wherever Shinichi was he was hiding something, something important. She knew he had it in him, that he always had, and she knew that whatever it was he wouldn’t give up the secret easily, no matter how deep it cut him. Shinichi had secrets, and the best way to find them was to seem like she wasn’t even looking. Camouflage was, after all something she and Shinichi had in common, for all that Akihiko was made to blend in with the bright colours of flowers where Shinichi melted into the shadows. If anyone could find out the truth, it was her. And she would, for Ran’s sake, for Shinichi’s sake, for her own sake if she was feeling uncharacteristically honest and self-aware, because no matter how hard she tried to deny it, to pretend that nothing was wrong, there was a part of her that feared for her friend.

The glasses brat was the same, full of secrets, easily camouflaged. Uncomfortably familiar in ways that no child should be. His daemon was a small spotted jungle cat of some undefined sort, like a miniature version of Makoto, and it _bothered_ her that she couldn’t identify Verity’s exact species. Sonoko prided herself on being able to accurately identify people’s daemons, on knowing _all_ the culture and folklore surrounding them. It helped to read people, and the fact that she couldn’t identify Conan’s daemon was a nagging irritation at the back of her mind. She added it to the long list of suspicious things about that kid, along with the fact that his daemon was settled _at all._ There were no good reasons for a six year old to have a settled daemon, and something told her that whatever Conan was hiding it was tied up with Shinichi and his mysterious disappearance.

And then his daemon started to change again, slowly, and everyone else thought it was a good thing. Sonoko wasn’t so sure. She knew daemonlore, had made an effort to know it. She might not have been able to pin down Verity’s old form but her _new_ form, that Sonoko recognised. A serval cat could indicate a lot of things, that he was hiding less, that he was more confident, that he was hitting above his weight, and most people seemed happy to assume that. But the first thing that came to _Sonoko’s_ mind when she looked at the kid was that old poem Shinichi had once read out in class. It had been about a serval cat in a cage, about how trapped she was. The way Verity paced, and fidgeted when she thought no-one was looking, told a story of a wild thing in a trap that no-one else wanted to see. That kid was getting worse not better, and it had Sonoko concerned and suspicious.

Not that she could share any of her suspicions with Ran. Because whatever was up with that kid, and clearly _something_ was up, Ran had already managed to get herself attached. Ran had _settled_ because of him, and that in itself was a sign of her position. Not that Ran settling was a bad thing _._ A bear was really the perfect fit for her, gentle right up until something crossed her, until someone threatened the people she loved. Then she was lethal. No it was a good shape, but the fact Conan had triggered it worried Sonoko, the kid had no sense of self preservation, and if there was one thing bears couldn’t stand it was harm coming to their cubs. If anything happened to the glasses brat Sonoko didn’t know _what_ Ran would do.

But that was ok, Sonoko could be suspicious without alerting Ran. Insect daemons were good for concealing emotions. She would watch, and wait, and find out _exactly_ what was going on, and then she’d _drag_ Shinichi out of whatever hole he’d crawled into and show him and Makoto _exactly_ why butterflies were once considered the harbingers of war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Akihiko is a butterfly. No specific type but I was picturing something medium sized, colourful, and pretty.  
> And yes Sonoko is suspicious of Conan. Let's be honest, Conan is a very suspicious child. But Sonoko unlike Ran knows better than to let him know she's on to him.
> 
> Jirokichi's daemon is a hummingbird.


	8. Claws and wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heiji and Kazuha have always been evenly matched. It was really no surprise that their daemons settled when and how they did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heiji and Kazuha settled within days of each other, in forms that matched far too well. Sometimes it seems like their daemons know something they don't.

Isamu and Sadako had settled when Heiji and Kazuha were both fourteen, that wasn’t remarkable, what was remarkable was the fact that they settled within days of each other. Heiji supposed it was because neither of them was willing to be left behind by the other, any more than Kazuha or Heiji would have been happy being left behind by each other. Three and a half days between Sadako settling and Isamu following her example. Heiji would admit he’d been smug for weeks that Sadako had been first, but honestly the difference was so small as to make no difference. Really though, it only made sense that they’d settled around the same time. They had always done everything together after all, ever since they were small children. So Sadako had settled as a sparrowhawk with fierce gold eyes and smooth brown feathers, and a few days later Isamu had taken off after her in the soft snow white feathers of a snowy owl and he’d never changed again. When the two of them had both gone back to school the next week with settled daemons, absolutely no-one had been surprised.

They were both hunting birds as well, alike in a lot of ways, which was convenient if nothing else. They could go further than most daemons, far enough to really _fly_ rather than just flutter awkwardly around their shoulders, but that was common enough with bird daemons. The nature of flight tugged at the bond until it stretched to accommodate, enough for them to stretch their wings, he’d heard a similar thing happened to people with ocean based daemons, that needed room to swim.

They both could go where Heiji and Kazuha couldn’t follow and it was good that they didn’t have to fly alone when the sky called to them. Sadako and Isamu loved to fly together, spiralling in ever more complicated aerial acrobatics above his and Kazuha’s heads, and when they landed to rest, they always spent some time preening each other and setting each other’s feathers in order. That sort of thing could have been difficult if one of them had turned out to be a cat or a dog or something. He was sure they would have managed, but shapes with similar grooming requirements, similar abilities, just made everything more convenient.

People did tend to look at them a bit funny when they explained they were just childhood friends though, especially when Isamu and Sadako were nestled up together picking through each other’s feathers affectionatly. It didn’t _mean_ anything, their daemons being so close was just a sign of their friendship. It wasn’t _just_ people who were romantically involved whose daemons were so touchy feely with each other.

Admittedly Sadako sometimes did give him a _look_ when he said that, like he was the densest person in the world. Heiji could say from personal experience that no-one could give a sceptical look quite the way a sparrowhawk could. Even Kudo had nothing on Sadako. It felt like she was looking right through his soul with those sharp yellow eyes, which, considering that technically she _was_ his soul, was probably more accurate than he’d like.

Then she’d fly off in a huff and nestle up to Isamu’s soft white feathers, and the two of them would whisper to each other, while shooting exasperated glares at him and Kazuha. It was actually kind of unnerving, like his and Kazuha’s hearts were conspiring against their conscious awareness.

When he’d voiced that thought to Kudo he’d got a look of disbelief from Kudo and Makoto both that even Sadako might have been a little impressed by. Hawks were of course the best at accusing stares, but cats were no slouches, and Makoto had it down to an art form. Then Kudo had muttered something about oblivious idiots and refused to elaborate, and then there had been a dead body and Heiji had never managed to get a straight answer about what he meant by that. That guy really was a cat down to his bones, secretive and contrary, and smug about knowing more than everyone else. The change in Makoto’s form had absolutely no effect on that tendency.

Really though he felt bad for Kudo. To have Makoto change that way after settling, he couldn’t even imagine how disorienting that must be, to lose that sure knowledge of himself. He’d never even seen Makoto in her original form, the powerful leopardess everyone knew she had been. He hadn’t seen it, but he could see how much it bothered Kudo. He knew Kudo wasn’t comfortable with the change. In fact Kudo seemed even more uncomfortable with the change in Makoto’s form than he was with the change in his own, after all there was still hope that the change in his own shape could be reversed. There was nothing in the world that could undo a daemon shift when it happened. Kudo clearly wasn’t dealing well with that.

 Heiji didn’t blame him, he didn’t even like to _think_ about something like that happening to Sadako, she fit him so well as she was. A hunting bird, made for the chase, and the freedom of flight, notorious for being hard to control, but also known for bravery. It suited him, he knew that much about himself, hotheaded as he was. And, there were other reasons it fit. Some said that sparrowhawks spoke on behalf of the murdered dead, to bring their killers to justice, to make the crime known, and if that wasn’t fitting for a detective he didn’t know what was.

Isamu suited Kazuha as well as Sadako suited him. Because he and Kazuha were alike in a lot of ways and it stood to reason their daemons would have something in common. But where Sadako was wildness and bravery, and justice for the dead, Isamu was magic, and good luck. Snowy owls were just as comfortable in the night as in the day, which was a good way of representing Kazuha’s odd blend of superstition and practicality. Kazuha always had more of an interest in the mystical than he did. Better luck as well. After all it wasn’t Kazuha who couldn’t step out the door without running into a dead body.

That was fine though. There were worse things to do than speak on behalf of the murdered, than bring criminals to justice. It was just a sign that he was on the right path, that his childhood dream of being a detective really was the right thing for him to be doing. Kudo would probably call it superstition, but honestly it was just paying attention to what Sadako’s shape told him about his own personality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heiji's Sadako is a sparrowhawk, Kazuha's Isamu is a snowy owl.   
> They spend a lot of time flying together, and preening, and cuddling, and generally acting like the daemons of an old married couple. Somehow Heiji and Kazuha are still completely clueless about their own feelings. Sadako and Isamu find this very irritating.


	9. Too close for comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akako sees too much of herself in Kuroba kun, too much for either of them to be comfortable with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting too close to Kuroba Kaito can only end badly, but Akako just can't quite help herself.

It was almost embarrassing, how long it had taken Akako to realise why her spell had no hold over the Kid, why she couldn’t weave her nets over his soul. Especially since she’d known from the first time she laid eyes on him, exactly what Kuroba Kaito had done to himself. He’d separated before settling, and he’d _broken_ himself in the process. Stupid, careless magicians, messing with powers they didn’t understand and had no business knowing. Stupid, careless, brave, idiots, no true born witch would have taken such a risk.

She should have realised it sooner, should have made the connection. That what Kaito had done to himself had made him as insubstantial as mist, as impossible to pin down as water, that there wasn’t enough solidity to his sense of self for her power to get a grip on him. And she hadn’t had the knowledge, or experience, or training to know that. If her mother had been there, had been alive to teach her, she would have been able to explain but she wasn’t, she was gone, and Akako had to do her best alone.

Akako took that thought and locked it away carefully. She couldn’t afford to think like that. Couldn’t afford to think about what she’d lost. Remembering how her mother died made it too hard to hold back her tears, and if she wept Akako would lose the power that was the only thing she still had of her. Her home was so lonely with only Akako and her almost human servant construct to make it their own.

Shoichi was so often gone. Not that often for a witch, not that often when she acknowledged how her soul craved the sky. But often, for a young girl, who spent her days desperately alone, amongst people who couldn’t understand why he left, and hung on her every word. It hurt, in ways she could never admit to.

And yet, when Shouichi returned from his travels, no matter how far or long he’d wandered, she knew he would always greet her with the rough rattling cry of a heron, she would always see him glide in on grey wings, and land with the poise of a dancer. Shouichi would come home and run his bill through her hair to comfort her, soothing, and no matter how long it had been or how much distance he’d put between them that was something that didn’t change. It was a long time since she’d had that kind of honest comfort from anyone but her own soul. She might not always know where he was, but she knew what he was, and that was a certainty she needed

It was a certainty that Kuroba kun had sacrificed, intentionally or accidentally. She didn’t know which, although a part of her suspected he’d known the risks. He was too meticulous a planner, not to have known. Kagami was unsettled, and she wondered if her ordinary human classmates were blind not to see it. Although maybe she was being too harsh. They weren’t all entirely blind. Hakuba kun had managed to work it out in the end, and it was obvious Nakamori san suspected far more than she was willing to consciously admit to herself.

Every day Akako saw Kuroba kun’s mask, as flawless, and suffocating as hers, and she wanted to tear at it the way part of her wanted to tear at her own, she wanted to cling to it the way she did to her own. She wanted the mask to crack, she wanted it never to fall, and she wanted that mask’s wearer with a dark and obsessive wanting.

She saw too much of herself in Kuroba kun was the problem. Associating with him could only lead her to trouble, she had enough foresight to know that, and yet, she couldn’t quite bring herself to stay away. Witches and magicians had far more in common than either would admit. The separated daemons, the distance between them and the ordinary people, the need for control, the masks. Magicians couldn’t afford to cry either.

Maybe that was how magicians had stolen the knowledge of daemon separation in the first place. Maybe one of her ancestors had been just as drawn to that kinship, and hadn’t been able to let it go, had let one of his kind too close in the process. And from that generations of bitterness was born because magicians are tricksters and witches cannot forgive betrayal, and the line between love and hate was sometimes as thin as a dying man’s breath.

She knew how this story ended, and yet that changed nothing. That was the way witches loved, deep, and possessive, and uncontrollable, and part of her wanted to stop, feared it would be the end of her, but never enough to walk away not ever. Nothing good could come of it.

Even if there hadn’t been generations of bad blood, even if magicians and witches were not too alike in all the worst ways, and too different in all the most dangerous ways. Kuroba had broken himself too thoroughly, her people had stories of the unsettled, of how there was far too little binding them to the world, of how they changed too easily for anyone to truly understand them, least of all themselves. Of how they lost themselves, and how anyone bound too closely to them ran the risk of getting lost with them.

And yet in some ways she _did_ understand Kuroba kun, in ways no-one else could. She knew how it was to come home to no family waiting, and no-one to tell her who to be. She knew what it was to wear a mask, all day everyday, until it became a part of her face. She knew what it felt like when her soul flew from her, unable to stand the constraints of a human life, wandered the winds without her for days, weeks, and left her alone. In some ways she understood far too much. That was probably why Kuroba shied from her, certainly it was why she sometimes lashed out at him. Sometimes understanding is not necessarily a comfort, when being misunderstood is just another shield against the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So for this version of Akako I tried to blend the canon on MK verse witches, with the canon for HDM witches, they were actually surprisingly compatible. The obsessive love thing transferred particularly well.  
> Akako's daemon Shoichi is a heron, btw.  
> Oh yeah and in this Akako's mother is dead, we never see any sign of her having parents in canon, and HDM witches take overprotective motherhood to whole new levels so if her mother isn't there, it means therefore, that her mother must be dead. It adds yet another correspondence between her and Kaito as well which is nice. I've always thought that out of all the DC and MK characters, Akako actually has the most in common with Kaito, more so even than Shinichi.


	10. Hand on heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Objectively Takagi's Eshima is an utterly unremarkable daemon. Sato thinks she's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takagi and Sato are tooth rottingly sweet together.

In some ways it made no sense. It wasn’t as though dog daemons were unusual amongst the police force. Half the department had some form of canine, and Takagi’s daemon was nothing particularly unusual, even as dogs went. Not compared to Nakamori keibu’s faintly intimidating African wild dog, or Yumi’s utterly ridiculous chihuaha. Eshima was a perfectly ordinary policeman’s dog daemon. Not eyecatching in any way.

And yet something about Eshima made Sato want to look twice. Made her want to keep looking, at silky golden fur and gentle brown eyes, and short floppy ears. Such a striking contrast to the sharp eyes and sharp talons and soaring ambition of Kisho’s eagle shape, and somehow all the more appealing for that. She wanted to touch, wanted him to allow her that close, to trust her that way. She wanted to allow him that close in return, to feel him stroking Kisho’s feathers, gentle and sweet.

Eshima was perfect for Takagi, as deceptively sweet and cuddly looking as he was. Plenty of criminals had let that lull them into a false sense of security, only to find that she could track their scent through a hundred layers of deception and never give up. He might look soft, but when it mattered, he was unrelenting.

Like human like daemon Sato supposed. Her Kisho was fierce, nowhere near as approachable as Eshima, fierce and untouchable. Takagi kun always was the natural good cop of their partnership. And yet, Kisho and Eshima were more alike than they first appeared. A gun dog and a hunting bird, they might look very different, but in the end they did the same job, and had the same instincts, and thought more alike than anyone would expect.

There was just something about Wataru, about Eshima, that was warm, and bright, and _good,_ and she might have tried to deny it at first but Kisho knew what he wanted. Had made it clear to her that if she didn’t move he would, and had been all too quick to descend on Eshima and start preening her ears when she and Wataru finally went on their first date. It would have been cute if it hadn’t been so mortifying. They’d been in the middle of a crowded restaurant after all. Later, Wataru had told her, blushing, that if Kisho hadn’t done it Eshima would have, that she’d been pushing him to make a move since they first met, so at least she wasn’t the only one being pushed around by her own soul. Not that she minded, when Wataru looked at her like that, looked at _Kisho_ like that, saw all of her and _adored_ her for it.

They tried to keep it low key at work of course. Anything else would have been inappropriate, but she knew for a fact that Megure keibu at least wasn’t fooled. At least not judging by Hekima’s unimpressed reptilian glare. As lizards went she was really very expressive, and her flat look spoke volumes when she and Takagi thought they were being subtle. It was a little embarrassing, but that was fine, she’d been working in division one long enough to know that not much got past Megure. He wouldn’t make an issue of it, not as long as their work didn’t suffer.

The fact that she was pretty sure Conan kun and all his little friends had figured it out as well, that was a little more embarrassing. After all they were _kids._ Most of them didn’t even have settled daemons yet, but still they’d managed to decipher Eshima and Kisho’s body language like pros. Those kids were far too sharp for their ages, especially Conan kun.

Although the intelligence was far from the biggest red flag about Conan. None of those kids _should_ have had settled daemons, they were too young for it, too young for it to be anything but worrying and she’d never quite been prepared to ask why Verity didn’t change. Never asked why every crime scene she saw the two of them at was pinned down by the same unwavering feline gaze when Verity _should_ still have been flickering from shape to shape as easily as breathing. She didn’t know what had happened to Conan kun for his daemon to have settled so young, but it couldn’t be anything good. It wasn’t really her place to ask, she knew, and she doubted he’d answer if she pushed anyway, too close, too personal, she wasn’t Conan’s guardian after all, and he was a secretive child.

She worried though, about Conan kun, and his little friend Ai who she was pretty sure was also settled, and she knew Takagi kun worried too. Sometimes he worried even more than she did, and she wonder what he had seen or, knew, or had been told, that she hadn’t. She wondered if Conan had told him anything. He might have done, the two of them got on well, and if Conan had confided in him, she wouldn’t know. And he wouldn’t ask either. Takagi wouldn’t say a word even to her and that was part of why she loved him. He was loyal to the bone, and just because he trusted her with his soul didn’t mean he’d tell her other people’s secrets. That was part of why she trusted him with her soul.

She remembered the very first time she’d run her fingers through golden fur, the first time Takagi had brushed his hand over silky dark feathers, and it had felt so terrifyingly personal she’d hardly dared to breathe. A thousand times more intimate than anything she could have imagined, and part of her had never wanted to stop. That more than anything told her Takagi was special. _Wataru_ was special. Because she had never allowed _anyone_ so close before, couldn’t imagine letting them lay hands on her soul, and yet with him it felt so natural, so perfect. And when they were curled up together on the sofa, with Eshima sprawled over both their feet and Kisho perched on Eshima’s head, close enough for either of them to touch, there was absolutely nowhere in the world she’d rather be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eshima is some sort of labrador type dog, very cuddly and friendly looking.  
> Kisho is a small eagle.
> 
> I'm going to wrap this fic up here for now I think. Leave it on a nice fluffy note. I've run out of steam on the idea, and this seems like a decent stopping point.  
> Besides, there's a fic where Shinichi and Shiho meet in the black org's dungeons that I want to write but can't until i've closed up one of my existing fics.


End file.
